Pat Wictor

A Few Choice Words: Pat Wictor Newsletter, April 2, 2007

Hey Folks--

I'm sending this to a few close friends, while trying to work around some funny spacing / formatting issues. Please let me know if it came out legibly, by forwarding me a copy of what you received. Still trying to work out some kinks, while delivering intelligible info.

Many thanks!

Pat

======= A Few Choice Words April 2, 2007 ===========

By Pat Wictor Subscribe: http://www.patwictor.com

Wednesday, April 2, 2007

Field Recordings and the Future

Ears and Eyes: What I'm listening to and reading

-Casey Bill Weldon, Aztec Poetry, and more

Upcoming Gigs & appearances

full calendar: http://www.patwictor.com

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Field Recordings and the Future

I was at a friend's house recently, listening to a CD of Mississippi field recordings Alan Lomax made in 1959 and 1960. Lomax documented the singing of chain gangs, church congregations, and lone musicians such as Fred McDowell. The music was visceral, simple, and powerful, filled with direct imagery and melodies that arc and resolve perfectly.

It occurred to me as we were listening, that the conditions that gave rise to this extraordinary American music are GONE. Our relationship to that old music--for ALL of us, black, white, rural, urban--is through those old field recordings. They are a valuable piece of our cultural and musical heritage.

Yes, the poverty and racism that were part of 1960 Mississippi remain, to a great extent (and not just in Mississippi). But poverty and racism themselves didn't give rise to that brilliant music. There was a complex web of social relationships, a slower pace of life, a degree of shelter from mass media and mass culture, even something as simple as a lack of electricity. All are disappearing, and all of these factors shaped the musicians and the music they created.

Now churches feature amplified music. Young men and women listen to rap, r&b, and popular music. Most blues musicians that remain, play electrified blues.

There are fewer and fewer people versed in these deeply American musicial traditions. When people do make music reflecting traditional approaches, it's likely that they're doing it because they listened to field recordings by Lomax and others such as Harry Smith.

What can we do, creatively speaking, with these field recordings, now that the world that gave rise to this music is gone?

1) We can treat them like museum pieces, catalogued, analyzed, described, and preserved through note-by-note transcription. Musicians coming from this approach often try to re-create the recorded performances note-for note.

2) We can use them like raw materials, stripped from context, to be cut and pasted into new works. Moby's "Play" CD is the most famous example of this, splicing field recordings with techno beats and electric funk. Another interesting and eerie example comes from "She Began To Lie," from the soundtrack to the movie "The General's Daughter."

3) We can make them a foundation for a living, breathing continuation of those musical traditions. For musicians and listeners taking this approach, it's a balancing act. It means learning not only about the songs themselves, but more importantly, about the spirit in which they were made. It means learning about the musicians and the era that birthed those songs, AND finding a way to connect them with who we are today, as individuals, and as a culture. This last path is my own--thanks for traveling it with me.

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Links:

The Alan Lomax Collection on the Rounder Records website http://tinyurl.com/ysxcw3

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ABOUT PAT WICTOR

Modern Man's Rob Carlson says, "He not only is a great guy and a great talent, but I believe he has, follicle for follicle, the best hair in folk music.

If you are interested in booking Pat Wictor, contact McShane Glover: tel. 410-268-8232, or mcshane@mcnote.com

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. . .

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